[epsi-coord] Topic reports for next months

[Tom Kronenburg]

·      State of the Data: Spending Data – Spending Data is one of the areas in which PSI re-use and Data journalism find a very natural connection. Journalists have been using visual tools to represented budgets and budget realisations, for a long time now. With the growing pressure on national debts throughout the union, projects that focus on (visualizing and) compiling spending data can provide unique insights and comparisons between member states.

·      State of the Data: Aid Data – The international Aid sector is trying to polish their reputations by focussing on transparency, and giving donors (the general public) a better insight in the functioning of the Aid institutions. A number of scandals (high pay for management, to much overhead, too little impact on the ground) have left their marks on a sector that is totally dependent of it’s own reputation. In order to ensure a steady stream of donations, all major NGO’s will open their books, and show their benefectors (the general public) how much is spend, how much effect that has had on the ground and how much has been kept for overhead. A number of workshops have been organised, and major benefactors (including governments) have started to demand ‘open data’. It is interesting to see how these agencies deal with the pressure from outside, how they try to organise both Open Data, as well as tools for inspection, and how the public responds to their efforts.

·      State of the Data: Public procurements – In more and more countries the procurement procedures of government are available online. Website like TED for the EU and many likeminded initiatives now allow insights into how public funds are spend, which companies benefit from these contracts, and what budgets are available for what PSB’s. A number of companies have started to either build competitors, or analyse the data from these public procurement sites. What happens to this data? Is there any money in selling public procurement data?

·      State of the Data: Cultural Data – There are view projects that have been as successful as Europeana in releasing datasets, creating tools to dissiminate the data and finding users across the EU who are now using their data. But Europeana is not the whole story. Libraries and cultural institutes accros the EU have been working on the release of their data, have been trying to get apps build, have been working towards more interaction with the general public. How have they been coping? What have they produced? Is there any room for Cultural Open Data outside of Europeana? 
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